1.1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of embedded processing systems and electronic control units (ECUs) and to autonomic embedded computing solutions in particular for telematic applications implemented in vehicles on road.
1.2. Description and Disadvantages of Prior Art
The present invention may be applied in a variety of technical environments including industrial control units, e.g. machinery tool control, manufacturing-line control units, automotive ECUs, multimedia units, telematic units, home appliance electronic control units, commercial and industrial diagnostics equipment tools, as well as in autonomic-embedded-computing solutions for vehicles on road, track, in the air, on/under water for security relevant systems and for safety relevant systems.
In the field of embedded processing systems and ECUs generally, a variety of functions are performed in a computer-assisted way. Very often, this means to apply a dedicated single- or multiprocessor unit to achieve one particular function. This is very often accompanied by applying quite specialised expensive components which are produced very specifically and in small series just to perform a single application function. This is repeated for a plurality of different application functions, which results in enormous aggregation of high cost ECUs, which work side by side, sometimes connected via a common bus system.
The same is true for the before-mentioned embedded-computing solutions for vehicles for example on road. As this is a particular focus of the present invention, prior art will be discussed in closer relationship thereto.
In automotive applications the security requirements are basically quite high in order to avoid breakdown of components as this may result in risking critical situations. Thus, quite expensive, highly reliable components and subsystems are often used redundantly which share a common bus system, for example a CAN-bus. Typically, a prior art embedded system may be sketched out as follows: an embedded processing system covering a plurality of technical applications, the operative functions of which are performed with a respective plurality of application-specific Electronic Control Units (ECU), whereby an ECU comprises a micro-controller and/or one or more processors, and specific input/output (I/O) subsystems.
This situation is schematically shown in FIG. 1. Three ECUs A, B, C are depicted, of which each ECU performs an own application function. ECU A may be considered to be dedicated for heating and cooling the car, ECU B for controlling a built-in mobile phone and ECU C for controlling open and closing of the windows. As one can see, each ECU comprises a specialised application-specific input/output subsystem 3 and one or more processors or micro-controllers 4. They differ from A, B and C very distinctly because the I/O subsystems are specific for controlling temperature, controlling the mobile phone and controlling the opening and closing of windows.
In the automotive sector such embedded systems are increasingly used. In many cars, the value of them is in the range of 20 to 30% of the total car value. Under the general constraint to provide improvements to the purchaser of a car giving more safety, security or luxury the car manufacturers must basically build in more redundancy in order to avoid that an eventual breakdown of a part of a ECU causes problems. Increased redundancy of electronic circuits, however, results in an increase of costs because expensive systems are used, which must be duplicated on system- and subsystem level. Further, a general cost-increasing problem is that a car manufacturer buys one ECU from a first supplier, and the next ECU from a different supplier and is thus very dependent of specific suppliers and on their proprietary solutions, systems, subsystems and components.
One solution to this would be the unrealistic approach to demand from a ECU-supplier also to fabricate ECUs for applications which are not inside his competence. Of course, this way is not feasible.
1.3. Objectives of the Invention
It is thus an objective of the present invention to provide improved embedded processing systems which have an increased level of security, performance, while the costs are not increased, but more or less decreased.